Marilyn Manson Album: “High End of Low [Deluxe Edition]”

In the 90's, I oscillated from liking and disliking Manson. I loved the band's sound along with his thematically inventive lyrics and striking vocals, but gathered from his look and interviews that he was just shocking for the sake of shocking. The vivid yet desolate aural landscape and hyperrelavent theological, political, sociological, and ultimately personal sentiments of "Holywood" convinced me otherwise. It demonstrated that his shock was a means to an artistic/intellectual end. After hearing that album, I had a much deeper appreciation of his past albums.

Then the trajectory turned downward. "Golden Age of Grotesque" didn't seem to say as much as his previous albums, lyrically or musically (especially the last third of the album). But overall, it was a clever indictment of our culture. "Eat Me, Drink Me" had raw righteousness and more tone colors, but some songs were noticeably bland at times. Upon hearing that Twiggy was returning, I anxiously awaited a return to form on the new album.

In short, "The High End of Low" isn't a return to form. It seemingly expotentiated the bland qualities of his last effort while offering roughly nothing new. Repeated power chords, repeated mantras, repeated "shocking" lines nowhere near as emotionally engaging or thought-provoking as any of his old albums.

I listened to every song, but barely made it through the half-way point of most of them. The few things I liked were the feel of Devour and We're From America, the acoustic riff of Four Rusted Horses (but again, it repeated too much), and the structure of Running to the Edge of the World. All a little new, and little different, a little metal. But "little" is the key term, as these few things were dwarfed by the quarter-baked blandness of the vast majority of the album.

I honestly don't know what happened. Between rejoining Twiggy and having more than enough reasons to shred our society, one would think Manson would prepare his magnum opus. My guess is the drugs and romantic obsession are to blame. The "daily fantasizing about smashing her head in with a sledgehammer" comment in a recent interview wasn't provokingly disturbing, just disturbing. I'll chant "We hate love, we love hate" any day of the week, but that comment just leads me to worry that the unparalleled intellectual and artistic powerhouse Marilyn Manson is no longer reflecting our sick society, but succumbing to it. This album could very well be the end. But not a burn out, just a fade away.

I would suggest to Manson that he quit feigning rebirth and do it. Return the songs and lyrics to form or go in a radically new direction. Do another Antichrist...or do a gospel album. Don't become the media caricature. Destroy it.

This album should not have been made. Given the past of Marilyn Manson, if you are not ready to play "in your face" rock and throw some well-thought out, and often well deserved, middle fingers then don't bother. This is not anything worthy of the Marilyn Manson name.

First, Manson has always worked better when he has a theme and actually had something to say. It was the over arching self-destruction through self empowerment that made Antichrist Superstar great. It was the escapist drug induced despair that made Mechanical Animals great. It was the critique of America's fascination with martyrdom and tragedy that made Holywood great. There is no theme to this album. There is no message to get across. Rather, what is there is a collection of songs that sound disjointed, unoriginal, and tripe. Songs that try for the shock value without any message behind the sound. Even if they do get you attention, there is no substance behind the music. Even the packaging of the album is unoriginal all the way from the typeset of the logo to the cover shot. This album exemplifies that Marilyn Manson is a poor imitation of what was once a great band.

Secondly, the album is definitely among the most melodic of his career, but even with Jeordie White doing some of the writing it is all predictable. The sound itself is hard to define, which is not unusual for a Manson album. There are elements of country as in "Four Rusted Horses" and there are elements of what could almost pass for bluesy groove driven rock as in "I Want to Kill You Like They Do In the Movies". This album for the most part is not like anything else Manson has put out. In reality, it sounds a little like something Rob Zombie would have done for House of 1,000 Corpses. Regardless, the album doesn't draw you in or keep your interest. There is nothing here worth hearing. Whatever sound Manson is trying to convey is honestly bland. This is Manson basically releasing a country or folk album with a few industrial influences kicked in. This also would be a miserable failure by any artist, all the more so for an artist of the caliber of Marilyn Manson.

Third, lyrically Manson continues to fall. With lyrics like "I've got a black eye of a soul" the lyrical content of the album is laughable. Manson is devoting very little thought to being at the top of his game when it comes to writing thought provoking lyrics. He has become lazy and it shows. It is at the point now where he needs to realize that the die hard fans who stuck around for the lyrical atrocities of his Golden Age era and Eat Me, Drink Me are beginning to leave the theater. The man who wrote the anthems of rebellion of the late 90s is no longer performing.

The critics, as usual are wrong in their praise. This is an album to be avoided. A lot of reviewers are stating that you shouldn't compare Manson's new work to his older material because his former masterpieces were done so well that their replication would be more a miracle than an expectation. I say, the older material proves what he is capable of. He can do better. He should do better. He can start be taking the $10.00 I paid for the CD and start a fund to get Zim Zum, John 5, Trent Reznor and Daisy Berkowitz all in the same room to have a meeting to get Manson back on track. Perhaps there is still hope that the Antichrist will be reborn, but it didn't happen on this album and sadly doesn't look likely for the near future.

Amazing, Shocking, But always Art. that's something that could be said of Marilyn Manson. Before. This album, and the last one sucked. you might find 1 or 2 you can stand , or even like, but thats it, i hate what he's done in these 2 albums with his voice, i can't even hear his human voice its got so many effects put on it. idk my only guess is his voice has had it, whatever it is, it doesn't sound like him. i think if you were never a fan of his old music you might like this new stuff, but i was, and i dont.

As stated by previous reviewers (and I agree), Manson's peak era was from Antichrist Superstar to Mechanical Animals. It was during those years that he showed the public how diverse and creative he could be. I personally like all his releases as they tend to be vastly different from one another (maybe up until Golden Age anyway). While I liked the "rock N roll" feel to Eat Me Drink Me, mostly due to Tim Skold's guitar style, I thought the self-loathing aspect to the album really dragged it down. I still cannot listen to "Just A Car Crash Away". WAY more depressing than even Manson could handle, as evident in future interviews.

Understandably, there was a lot riding on The High End Of Low. Mainly, because of the return of chief songwriter Jeordie "Twiggy" White and because of Manson boasting about how this album is his most "dark, brutal and heavy" album to date. Did it live up to the hype? Well, mostly if you can forgive Manson for his inaccurate description of the record. The High End Of Low is actually Manson at his most melodic. Tracks like Devour, Leave a Scar and Running to The Edge of the World show Manson pushing his vocals further than ever before. This works about 80% of the time, though at times his voice seems strained. However, you know what to expect as Manson has always had that hoarse, dramatic quality to his voice

If you are a Manson fan then definitely get this album because its a great rock record and his least depressing album to date. Its almost hopeful in a strange way. Twiggy and NIN alum Chris Vrenna wrote the music and the songs are well done. You get your money's worth with this record and thats what matters. Standout tracks include I Want To Kill You Like They Do In The Movies, which is a 9 minute epic with great throbbing bass and a very dark theatrical quality to it. It even has the sound of a film reel spinning constantly throughout the song. Very cool. Into The Fire, Leave A Scar and Pretty As Swastika are great as well. Twiggy has shown himself to be a great songwriter and he took over the guitar duties again with great results. The only song that did nothing for me was "We're From America", just because the main riff got old fast. Thats only one song out of 15. Not bad.

Pick this up. Great album.

well, nothing lasts forever. even the most talented and brilliant among us eventually get boring and pathetic. i think its time for marilyn manson to retire before he really makes a fool out of himself.

anyway, i had high expectations for this album. with twiggy back in the band and manson claiming this is the best record they've ever made, i think i was justified in thinking this would be a great album.

the strange thing is that the only two albums this sounds anything like are "eat me, drink me" and "golden age of grotesque," the two albums that twiggy was not involved in. it's as if he took the sounds he liked from those two records, pulled some stale riffs out of thin air, and threw together a bunch of crappy songs. and manson, having nothing terribly interesting to say this year, just came up with some boring lyrics and called it a day. this is by far the worst manson album ever made, and i'm including "smells like children" in that statement.

i appreciated the new sound that manson had for "eat me, drink me" even i didn't necessarily like the album. but this time he's not even trying. he says nothing of value and nothing of interest, and the songs are about as simple and cookie-cutter as they can get. people made a big deal out of twiggy's return, but its not like you'd notice he was there.

listen to the song "arma...geddon." it's terrible, but listen to it and tell me that manson didn't just phone it in. i mean there's two tiny verses and he repeates the godawful chorus like 20 times. he has nothing to say here, but he thinks giving the song a "shocking" title like that will somehow validate his complete dearth of ideas. and the censored version manages to be even more unlistenable.

i am so mad right now. manson deserves a kick in the balls for releasing this.